The present invention relates to medical examination, diagnosis and treatment, and more particularly, to providing such services over a network.
Health care costs in the United States exceed one trillion dollars per year. In 1996, spending on health care in the United States exceeded fourteen percent of the Gross Domestic Product. Current health care system costs include annual service to over ninety million people in over five thousand hospital emergency departments. These ninety million or more visits impose an enormous burden on emergency departments. Ambulances on route toward the closest available emergency department are often diverted to other hospitals, sometimes located in another city. The cause of such calamities is multi-factorial and includes: nursing shortages, bed unavailability, and grossly overcrowded, overburdened emergency rooms.
Telecommunications technologies, and in particular, video-conferencing, offer an opportunity to provide cost effective care in a variety of settings. In particular, tele-medicine and tele-healthcare have been envisioned with respect to many specialties including: pathology, dermatology, surgery, opthamology, cardiology, and radiology. However, diagnosis and treatment in these areas require either a human presenter or mechanical equipment at the patient end to gather pertinent information related to the patient's condition.
For example, it is known in the prior art to provide remote monitoring of patients over a network. U.S. Pat. No. 5,544,646, which is hereby incorporated herein, issued to David et al., discloses an interactive television and audio patient monitoring system for connecting a patient situated at home or in a hospital room with a central monitoring station that is manned by one or more health care practitioners. The invention provides two-way interactive visual communications between a patient and a health care practitioner via cable television lines whereby the central station may continuously monitor one or more medical parameters (such as, ECG, blood pressure, respiration, etc.) by utilizing medical equipment located in the patient's hospital room or home.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,747, issued to Brudny et al., and also incorporated herein by reference, discloses an interactive training system used for monitoring a patient suffering from neurological disorders of movement. The system includes a patient station that includes a computer in communication with a supervisor station via a local area network or the Internet. Sensors collect physiologic information and physical information from the patient while the patient is undergoing training. This information is provided to the supervisor station to be summarized and displayed to the patient and the supervisor.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,168,563, issued to Brown and incorporated herein by reference, discloses a system and method for enabling a health care provider to monitor and manage a health condition of a patient. The system includes a health care provider apparatus operated by a health care provider and a remotely programmable patient apparatus that is operated by a patient. The health care provider develops a script program using the health care provider apparatus and sends the script program to the remotely programmable patient apparatus through a communication network such as the World Wide Web. The script program is computer executable, and provides information to the patient about the patient's health condition by asking the patient questions and receiving answers to the questions. The answers are forwarded to the health care provider through the communication network and processed for further management of the patient's health condition by the health care provider. The patient data may also include information supplied by a physiological monitoring device that is connected to the remotely programmable patient apparatus.
In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 6,205,716, issued to Peltz and also incorporated herein by reference, discloses a secure, modular interactive two-way tele-collaborative video conferencing and imaging enclosure for remotely monitoring physiological attributes of a user by medical specialists and remote interaction between users and medical specialists. Access to the system requires participation in a healthcare program or health insurance program, such as an HMO. The healthcare program provides the patient with an “access card” that enables the patient to use the enclosure.